BTRT Patterns (on Etsy)

I love hearing people's stories~ whether told straight up, through their art, craft, work, photos..., in whole or in part. This feature will welcome people with a bit of their story to tell. Submissions or pitched ideas are welcome, just send me an email with your thoughts on anything in the realm of art, creativity, gentle or natural parenting, small business, kids.... while this is not an advertising slot, stories related to your work may be suitable.

Our first 'tuesday's guest' is K., from The Littlest Crafter. I happened upon her post for an indoor Hopscotch Game and I knew I needed to have her come and share it! Here is her post & tutorial...

I'm so excited to be doing a guest post here are Beneath the Rowan Tree. I was delighted when Lori contacted me and asked if I would link up my hop scotch to her Playdate Linky party, but I was surprised when she asked if I would consider doing a guest post on my newest creation.

Let me introduce myself - I'm K. from The Littlest Crafter. I'm a wife and mother of 2 darling children who have the ability to melt my heart and make me want to run away all in the same afternoon! My hubby bought me my very first sewing machine this past November, and my blog has been a way to show my friends and family (and the rest of the blogging, world to my great surprise!) my creations.

I am super proud of this hop scotch creation because it was something that I just winged and it turned out pretty darn good. I consider myself a beginner sewer, so this is definitely something anyone can do. I ended up making this into a 3 Part Series over at my blog, but because I'm a guest here, I will try not to over stay my welcome! This is my condensed version of my hop scotch tutorial, but if you want more details, you can head on over to my blog, or feel free to contact me with any questions you might have!

When the weather permits we have a lot of fun outside with the side-walk-chalk, one of things that we make is a hop scotch. I thought it would be a great idea to make one that we could use inside, all year
round.

What do you need?

Enough fabric to make twenty 9 X 9 inch squares,

Matching/Coordinating fabric for numbers and/or foot prints

Matching/Coordinating thread

To give you an idea, for the one side of my hop scotch I used 2 old TShirts (though I don't recommend using TShirt material!) and a sundress - this gave me my 10 squares and numbers 1-10.

The first thing you are going to do is cut out your squares. You should have 20 in total for the two sides your hop scotch. Go ahead and find a font that you are comfortable with for your numbers. I Used Microsoft Word and the Bernard Condensed in about size 450 - 500. Print them out.

Pin the numbers to your fabric and cut them out and sew them on your squares.

I decided that I would make foot prints on the back of the hop scotch. To do this, I traced my daughter's foot print to use as a template. I pinned the foot print to my fabric, cut them out and sewed them to remaining 10 squares. You are going to need 7 Right Foots and 7 Left Foots.

Now you will have 20 squares ready to go. One with numbers 1 through 10 and one with foot prints.

Choose one side of your hop scotch to start with and start sewing the two side by side squares together. Make sure you are putting the correct numbers together. Put the right sides together and sew a straight stitch.

Once those are done, start adding the single squares, again ensuring that you are putting them in the correct order and in the correct direction. To make sure that they are centered, fold your single square in half, and place the fold along the seam of the side by side squares.

Continue to add the single squares to the double squares until all the pieces are connected!

Go ahead and press down the seams on the whole side of the hop scotch. Then repeat those steps all over again for the other side. You should now have two hop scotches.

Put the right sides of both hop scotches together and pin them.

Then sew around the edges. When you get to a corner, I found it useful to put the needle into the fabric and then lift up the foot and turn the fabric to my next direction. Leave a little opening at the top of the hop scotch so you can flip it right side out.

Be sure to clip the corners.

You are also going to want to clip in the corners where the squares meet. I clipped little triangles in the corners.

Then flip the hop scotch right side out and iron it flat and close up the opening at the top. And that's it! You're the owner of your very own custom made hop scotch!

If your kids are a little older and they know how to play "real" hop scotch, you could also sew up a few small bean bags to use as "rocks" (you can read about the ones I made here).

Here's a few shots of the finished hop scotch. I have to apologize for the pictures, it's was so hard to get a decent shot of something so long!